Re:Bleach
by Nevermore999
Summary: AU. Grief is a powerful force in the world, but can the will of the heart turn black into white? Rated M for serious issues.


**Re: Bleach**

**Part I**

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**Chapter I**

**And so the Sword of Fate fell to Earth**

We respect those that cannot be seen and stand in awe of that which we cannot explain. Those are the words a friend of mine once told me, and my story rings true with that message. My name is Ichigo Kurosaki, and as far back as I can remember, I've been able to see ghosts. I could tell you how my life began, but I think I'll start with how my life became relevant instead. It was sunset in my hometown of Karakura, the sky orange like my hair, I was fifteen years old, and I was kicking the crap out of some street punks.

"Watch where you're going!" With one look from them, my breath became fire as my leg struck the first one like lightning, knocking him back a few feet until he landed right on his ass. Their eyes were wide as plates after that, and though they seemed like a typical bunch of jackasses at first, they did some disrespectful shit that pissed me off.

"Dammit! What's your problem?!" His pal with glasses yapped at me, acting like he didn't know, "You kick Yama outta the blue like that, and for what?!"

They glared at me as if I was the one out of line, probably assuming I was a punk from the way my hair looked, but all they got from me at that moment was a hostile silence. If they weren't smart enough to realize why I was mad, then I wasn't going to say anything until they were paying attention. They didn't seem to take that well since the silence didn't last a minute before the other one started yammering.

"Well, say something, dammit!" He barked like a little dog right before my heel turned on him, smacking him over into the second idiot. That Yama guy looked at me with a distinct twinge of fear, sweat running down the side of his face as he called out to his pals.

"This is bad, Toshirin," He cried out as I started to walk closer to him, my breathing growing hotter as his sweating grew more profuse.

Crawling backward with every step I took, his eyes darted desperately for a way to get around or away, and his breathing became shallower and shallower as the distance between us began to close. Having had enough of this attitude from them, I grabbed his collar and yanked him off the ground to where he could see the veins in my eyes and feel the heat of my breath.

"Shut up and pay attention, will ya?!" I barked back as he slammed his gibbering mouth shut tight, "First question: What can that be?" I poignantly asked while pointing towards the side of the road.

Yama's expression twisted into confusion as he turned his head towards the street, but in a moment, his eye caught what I meant. Right by the street light was a half-full vase lying on its side with dying white flowers hanging over the edge of the sidewalk. As the wind took hold of a few more petals, Yama finally grasped what they had done to earn their beating.

"Uh, well, flowers for the kid who died here the other day?" he answered while still seeming unsure.

"That's right!" I barked once again, my anger finally gaining clarity with them. If there was one thing that pissed me off more than anything, it was an idiot who offended someone without even noticing it because they weren't paying attention. And as I turned my gaze away from him and back towards his pals, I threw Yama into his pals one last time so that they would all listen equally.

"Alright, here's my second question," I remarked aggressively, a subtle threat lingering in my tone of voice while pointing at them, "Why is that vase on its side?"

Reacting to my second question, they turned to stare at each other in confusion, pondering this for a moment before one of them spoke up on the other's behalf.

"Well, we were… uh…" one of them said nervously before suddenly being interrupted by Yama.

"We were skateboarding and knocked it over!" Yama declared in a hurry.

"Damn straight!" I snapped before rushing into a front kick that slammed against his face and sent it into the pavement behind him. Pointing and snarling at the other punks, my last piece of advice for them was, "Don't ever do it again or next time the flowers will be for you!"

With that, the teens grabbed their asses off the ground and ran like the wind, much to my pleasure. It wasn't something I was necessarily proud of, but I always took a wisp of satisfaction in seeing disrespectful assholes run away from me in sheer terror. Apart from that was a calming air around me as I turned my attention to the vase itself. The flowers were wilting against the pavement, and as I lowered myself to pick them up, I felt a small sensation come over me.

"Sorry about that," I began as I recognized the feeling, "But if I put that much fear into them, they probably won't be back."

Taking a glance behind the street lamp, I saw the girl I was defending smile at me. Maybe it was the orange sunlight shining through her transparent body, but it looked like she saw me like some hero instead of a nosey punk with anger issues. She looked young and innocent enough to believe that, judging from her dark brown pigtails, pink sundress, and black dress shoes. If not for her transparent form and the chain attached to her chest, you would mistake her for a normal-looking girl. But after a moment, she began to speak herself.

"Thank you for getting rid of them. Now I should be able to rest in peace." She spoke softly with a voice laced with gratitude, and what I thought was admiration. Looking back on it now, though, it was probably just pure relief.

"You're welcome," I told her with the best smile I could muster, even though it was fake. It was difficult for me to smile at all sometimes, especially after I was in a bad mood, but I knew it was something I had to do to help her. Turning my gaze back to the vase for a brief moment, I added, "I'll need to bring some fresh flowers tomorrow, but it's about time you passed over."

And with that, I threw my bag over my shoulder and started walking back home. The sun was setting faster with every step I took, and while I knew my old man was going to give me a hard time about that, it was worth it to help these spirits out. After all, we share part of the blame since we run a clinic. Dad always told me that he wanted to help people in any way he could, being so ready to get to work that he never took off his doctor's coat at home, and so earnest that the clinic became a primary care center for low-income families. Because of that, while we manage to get by most of the time, we only save some lives while losing others. Maybe it's because of that that I try to help the dearly departed pass on to the afterlife.

After a lengthy walk, I approached the front door with a sense of dread as my nose alerted me to the faintest puffs of smoke lingering around my front door. And as I opened the door, my stomach immediately cringed. I had forgotten that Dad was cooking tonight, and I honestly should've seen it coming with how often it happens. Frankly, it was a miracle that the kitchen walls managed to stay yellow after all the smoke they endured.

_Well, let's get this over with,_ I thought to myself as I walked through the doorway before shutting the door behind me. When I was right about to turn into the kitchen and say I'm home like a sitcom star, I suddenly found myself on the floor with a pounding pain on the side of my head. And as the pain quickly broke my composure, I looked up and saw Dad standing right at the turn with his elbow extended outwards.

"You're late, you delinquent!" He grunted out, "You know that dinnertime is always at seven!"

"Why you-!" I growled as I got to my feet and rushed towards him, getting up in his face while gritting my teeth, "Is this any way to treat your son, who just laid his life on the line to help a ghost pass over?!"

"I don't care what your excuse is. Anyone living here who breaks the rules gets punished! Now sit your ass down and eat your food before it gets cold!" He barked as he grabbed me by the collar and shoved me into my chair.

"Oh, leave him alone, Dad." the snarky voice of my sister Karin called out as she finished her bowl. Opening her eyelids and revealing her dark grey orbs underneath them, she turned to dad with her now empty bowl held out before calmly adding, "More rice, please."

Rolling his eyes a bit at the lip Karin just gave him, Dad grabbed the wooden spoon and haphazardly put some more rice into her bowl, spilling some rice onto his already stained Hawaiian floral shirt. At the time, considering how he handled food, it was a wonder how he had managed not to get rice all over his shaved sideburns and beard, let alone his pants or the floor.

"Anyway, you do remember that ghosts and such don't exist, right?" She asked me sarcastically. It seemed that sarcasm was her default tone of voice after putting her long black hair into a ponytail, and her attitude had become milder and sassier ever since she entered middle school. Back then, I could've sworn that wearing a white sailor _fuku _turned my little sister into a female version of me if I was calm and in denial.

"Karin, you can see them just as well as I can. How can you still deny it?" I asked her as our father took his seat across from me, his gaze becoming somber and focused.

"What we see isn't always real, Ichigo," he said with a concerned but somber tone. However, in the next moment, his gaze narrowed sharply, and I could tell that he was about to say, "If you took your medication like you're supposed to, you wouldn't see those visions."

There it was again, his standard medicine lecture. That was his answer every time we brought this up. No matter how bad I heard them scream, or how damaged their images looked, he would reply like a broken record. He was a doctor that couldn't see ghosts, so he would try to act like he was a rational human being and chalked them up to trauma-induced visions. That was the sensible conclusion, but it never sat well with me, opening old wounds each time he didn't listen.

"Like hell," I fired back, and even though I knew he wouldn't listen, I still added, "Karin and I have been taking that crap for years, but we still see them everywhere."

"I've asked you before if you need stronger medication, Ichigo."

"You've changed our meds before, and nothing good happened. We lost our appetites and got grouchier, but that was it, remember?" I reminded him as I got up from my chair before turning around and heading for the stairs. It seemed that dinner conversation made me lose my appetite too. As I made my way up the stairs, I found myself looking at a wall with the corner of my eye, and my heart lightly ached. Over there was the worst part of the house; A memorial picture of my late mother. Her bright smile taunted me, reminding me that she wasn't there anymore, and how I could never change that.

Trying to block out those thoughts, I shook my head before opening the door to my room, entering it in haste before slamming the door and springing onto my bed. But while the only things I could see were the heavy metal band posters on my walls and the anatomy homework on my desk, I could still hear the conversation downstairs echoing through my doorway. With every muffled word and sound, I could tell what Dad and Karin were doing.

"_What am I going to do with that boy?_" Dad mused.

"_Ichigo is just having a tough time right now,_" Karin replied.

"_What makes you say that?_"

"_Now that you mention it, he said he's seeing more of them than before,_"

"_You mean he talks to you about things like that?_" Dad asked her with a tone of surprise, almost like he took offense to it before adding, "_He doesn't tell me about that._"

"_Of course, he doesn't. You're our dad, not a friend,_" She responded matter-of-factly.

"_Do you hear this, Masaki?_" he defensively cried while turning his attention and gaze towards the poster like he always did when he felt attacked by us, "_I don't know if it's because they're going through puberty, but the kids have been so cold lately. What should I do?_"

"_First thing,_" Karin answered coldly, "_Get rid of that stupid memorial poster._"

The conversation lasted a little longer than an hour after that, but eventually, the two of them went to bed as the house grew dark and quiet. However, the outside world wasn't peacefully settling down for the night like we were. Instead, the night became restless as the sounds of cars drove past the clinic, a few sirens blew up, and for the finale, some unpleasant booms resonated through the streets. Those were perhaps the worst part of that night. They started low at first, but gradually the volume grew with each repeating boom, echoing like thunder. Every time I felt myself drift into sleep, there was a booming that pried my mind awake.

At four in the morning, the noise made me so restless that I dragged myself out of bed to look through my window and find out what it was. Pulling the curtains back, I dreaded to see the lightning of a thunderstorm, but instead, the bright light of the full moon assaulted my eyes. While I was relieved to find that there wasn't a cloud in the sky, the noises now disturbed me. I hate the rain, but hearing thunder is typical during rain showers. What was worse was that the booming suddenly stopped. Just the question behind those sounds gave me enough insomnia for the sun to come up before I could get any rest.

Sluggishly, I got out of bed once again and hastily threw on my uniform. While I admit that it was a nice change from the gakugan I wore in junior high, the grey blazer and slacks still weren't my style. It seemed like Karakura High was more of a western-style school than the ones I had previously been to, but they still enforced a strict dress code about what shirt was appropriate underneath the jacket, and arguing was more trouble than it was worth. I always liked to forgo the necktie, however. It was just a useless piece of clothing that never really served a purpose besides looking proper.

Once everything was on, I grabbed my book bag and headed straight downstairs towards the kitchen. As usual, there was miso soup ready to scarf down before class started, the television tuned into the morning news, and Karin was sitting at the table in no hurry at all. However, the clinic didn't have an emergency, but Dad was strangely not at the table either.

"Morning Ichigo," She said between bites of her breakfast while I was taking another quick look around.

"Where's Dad?" I calmly asked.

"He has a meeting today. Said he wouldn't be home tonight," Karin answered as she finished her bowl.

"I see." I sighed as I started to make my bowl of miso before the news suddenly snatched my attention.

"_According to residents, at about 4:30 AM, the ground shook with a loud crash outside of Karakura Station._" the newswoman reported as the imagery shifted to images of what I presumed were the damaged buildings. The air was chalky white with rubble scattered everywhere as the walls looked like wrecking balls had hit them before being blasted with dynamite. The scene changed once again to a familiar-looking street as my eyes narrowed and my attention tightened as she continued with, "_Many buildings within a one-block radius of Main Street exploded._"

"What's wrong, Ichigo?" Karin asked as she gave me a confused expression.

"Those explosions were near here," I answered without realizing I had spoken out loud.

"It was probably just an earthquake that set them off," She replied, waving it off like it was no big deal before adding, "Things just happen sometimes."

In a logical world, she would've been right. Earthquakes were rare enough, but they did happen now and then. But as reasonable as that explanation was, there was a pricking in my skull that disagreed. An irrational splinter thought poked at my mind, flooding my stomach with a swirling cesspool of dread as I finished my breakfast. I tried to take my mind off of it by purchasing new flowers for the dead girl before heading to class, but Karin's words kept circulating in my head.

To make matters worse, while we were on our way to school, Karin and I walked right by where an explosion went off, the police thoroughly blocking it off and searching for the tiniest clues. But they weren't the only ones. As I took a side glance at the police line, my suspicions grew worse as the miso swirled with dread.

I thought to myself, _It wasn't two blocks away from our clinic, and yet somehow, we didn't feel much shaking.__ Moreover, the damage was catastrophic to several buildings, but you would expect the whole city to feel an earthquake that strong. Not to mention that some of the buildings look burnt instead of just smashed, almost like a fire. On the other hand, those could've resulted from the_-

Just as my train of thought caught onto the track, there was a disturbance — a primal, low-pitched roar. The kind you would hear in a kaiju movie.

"What was that sound?" I wondered as I turned my head to look around, my heart racing like lightning.

"I didn't hear anything," Karin bluntly claimed while giving me a blank stare. Looking at me like I was crazy, she turned around in the direction of her junior high before halfheartedly waving, "See ya later, Ichigo."

And just as she turned the corner, the roar returned to my eardrums, only closer this time. Shortly following that, there was a loud crash that rocked the ground before a crowd of pedestrians ran past me in a panic. Against their screams, the roars grew louder and frequent, indicating it was getting closer. My common sense told me to follow the crowd and preserve my own life, but the prickling in my skull killed its voice while the feeling in my gut took ahold of my reflexes and sent me into a sprint.

As I ran against the panicking crowd, my heart raced faster and faster while my eyes began to dart in every direction. Turning my glance upward, my grip on reality lost hold as claw-like gashes tear themselves into the building walls, sending a cloud of brick, dust, and broken glass raining down around me. Adrenaline spiking through my veins, my arms moved to shield me from the falling debris as my vision locked on a silhouette within the dust. And as the dust choking the air began to clear, the outside world blurred while the figure became focused and clear.

As I looked closer at the thing in front of me, I couldn't help but mutter a whisper, "What the hell?"

It was a thing you would see in nightmares or movies. It stood at four meters tall with a brown and black body like a centipede. Yet, somehow, the beast stood upright with sickles in the place of arms. But the worst thing about it was the plated face. Unlike the rest of its body, its face was as white as bone, its green eyes filling the entire socket while purple streaks formed around them before running along the side of its mask, and worst of all was the matching purple grin below a skeletal hole for the nose.

Then it turned its gaze, and there was this glint in its eyes, like an animal that just spotted its next meal. I felt like the dust had grabbed ahold of my neck and forced its way into my throat as I struggled to breathe properly. All I could think about now was running. But just as I turned my heel to run, a shrill huffing came from the direction of the beast.

Within moments, the little ghost girl came sprinting away from the creature, shouting out, "Help me! Please help me!"

"What is that?!" I asked as I started to run alongside her, the beast roaring once more as it began to chase us.

"I don't know!" She cried as she tried to keep running, the chain on her chest swinging and bouncing with every motion she took.

Running seemed to be the only thing we could do. Any misstep we took could've led to death for me, and I didn't know what for her. But every step, my lungs burned like fire as my legs became heavy. Fear and fatigue were getting the better of me, and I hated it. I was known for my backbone when it came to threats on my life, and it was pathetic to run away. I thought if I knew what to do, maybe I would stand up to that thing. But I didn't, and just as I thought things couldn't get any worse, the girl tripped over herself.

"Hey!" I blurted out as I turned towards her, the beast coming closer regardless. While the world around me looked blurry, her image was clear and focused for a change, her face flowing with tears as she looked back at me with a mixture of desperation and pain. Without thinking, I tried to lift her to her feet, but she cried out as I did, her chain flinging around once more as she cringed even more. It was as if the chain pinned her to the ground, leaving us both sitting ducks for the beast now going for the kill.

As it lifted its sickle arm to cleave us apart, my breath finally stopped, and my heart fell silent. I had to run to live, but I couldn't. This girl was all alone when she died, while she waited to pass on, and would be alone if I left her. The sickle came down on us, moving as fast as the blade of a guillotine when suddenly, there was a swift flash of light against the sickle before a surge of blood came forth. Slowly turning my gaze to look where it had come from, I saw astounded to see a young woman dressed in a black kimono looking at the beast without an ounce of fear.

With a thud from its severed limb hitting the ground, the beast roared in pain as the woman readied her blood-soaked sword like a samurai. Without a moment of hesitation, she leaped into the air above the creature. In its rage, the beast swung its other sickle at her all too late. With one strike to the head, her blade cleaved the monster in half, its body seeming to burn, dissolve and scatter into the wind as the woman landed. But after she did, she turned her gaze towards us with that icy expression before approaching us, raising her sword once again. From the look of it, the woman who had just saved us from that monster now intended to kill the ones she defended.

"Hey! Hey, you?" I exclaimed as I stepped in front of the ghost girl, my vision going back to normal, and her expression shifting a bit as I spoke.

"You can see me?" She asked confoundedly before sheathing her sword.

"Huh? Of course, I can see you."

"Strange. Most humans can't." She replied as she pulled out a small stick with a cartoonish rabbit's head on the end of it.

"What are you babbling about?" I demanded, my confusion turning into irritation as my voice became louder with each additional question, "What was that? Who was that? What's going on?"

"Don't worry about it," She said as she pointed her stick at me, "You won't have to worry about that ever again."

And as she finished that line, there was a clicking sound, and everything went bright white.

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_**While most fans (myself included) appreciate Bleach as an enjoyable story written by Tite Kubo, it is still a very flawed series with some out of place elements, forgotten elements, Deus ex machinas, and typical shonen power escalation. I hope that by addressing these problems, I can build off the world Tite Kubo created with such a passion and create a more cohesive story that the series of events leading to Bleach's decline prevented.**_

_**I give full credit and respect to Tite Kubo's work and hope each reader supports the official release and content.**_


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